At 11:30pm last night, a black Infiniti® G35rear-ended a minivan in the Pi’ikoi Street and King Street intersection. The minivan spun around and ended up on the sidewalk at the corner of the intersection. The offending vehicle, traveling at high rate of speed, slid and spun around a couple times before ending on the sidewalk right in front of the “old folks home.”
The front of the offending vehicle was compressed about 24 inches at the left corner, suggesting that it was point of impact. The air bags deployed during the collision. According to an eyewitness, the three occupants fled the scene. The driver of the unrecognizable minivan was transported to a hospital by ambulance. Another night in the slum known as Lower Makiki.
As mentioned in a previous Note about Lower Makiki, the State Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) is right across Alder Street from the “old folks home.” There are about six motorhomeless squatters stationed around the Alder Street and Elm Street semi-perimeter of the JDC. As of a couple of weeks ag, there is now a group of homeless squatters on that portion of Elm Street. There are transient motorhomeless appearing nightly in the area, mostly on Sheridan Street near the Walmart® “big box” store. Myriad transient homeless camp nightly along King Street and Beretania Street.
In actuality, the entire area from downtown to Kahala is a contiguous campground or homestead for the four types of homeless (underlined) previously mentioned. The situation is totally out of control. However, the Lower Makiki slum appears to have the highest concentration of homeless.
Add in the endless blight of ugly walk-up apartment buildings, mostly dilapidated, along with the far too numerous bars and night clubs ... all add up to ghetto-like environment. In other words, Lower Makiki is a slum. Pity the senior citizens who must tolerate residing in a total slum.